From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Center for Applied Rationality

US-based nonprofit organization

Summary

US-based nonprofit organization

Field	Value
name	Center for Applied Rationality
image	CFAR.png
alt
map
map_size
map2
merged
formation
founder
extinction
merger
type	Nonprofit research institute
status	501(c)(3) tax exempt charity
purpose	Research and training in cognitive science, and de-biasing, to alleviate existential risk from artificial general intelligence
location	Berkeley, California, U.S.
coords
leader_title3	President
leader_name3	Anna Salamon
main_organ
parent_organization
volunteers
website

The Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) is a nonprofit organization based in Berkeley, California, that hosts workshops on rationality and cognitive bias. It was founded in 2012 by Julia Galef, Anna Salamon, Michael Smith and Andrew Critch, to improve participants' rationality using "a set of techniques from math and decision theory for forming your beliefs about the world as accurately as possible". Its president since 2021 is Anna Salamon.

CFAR's training draws upon fields such as psychology and behavioral economics in an effort to improve people's mental habits. Jennifer Kahn visited the group and described its strengths and flaws in the New York Times. CFAR has conducted a survey of participants which indicates that workshops reduce neuroticism and increase perceived efficacy.

CFAR is part of the rationality movement surrounding Eliezer Yudkowsky's web site LessWrong, from which CFAR originated. Paul Slovic and Keith Stanovich have served as advisors.

The group taught classes for Facebook and the Thiel Fellowship.

A scholarship funded by the founder of Skype, Jaan Tallinn, has been used to send selected Estonian students to workshops held by the Center for Applied Rationality.

"Zizians" and Sonoma County incident

On November 15, 2019, four people dressed in Guy Fawkes masks were arrested for allegedly barricading off a wooded retreat where CFAR was holding an event. According to police, the suspects were not cooperative and said things about their views on rationalism that the officers could not understand. The protesters were members of a splinter group of the rationalist movement that became known as the "Zizians". They alleged that CFAR's leader "discriminates against trans women", and accused CFAR of not "appreciably develop[ing] novel rationality/mental tech". Alleged members of the Zizians later became the suspects or persons of interest in an attempted murder in November 2022 and four murders in 2022 and 2025, including the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol officer in a shootout. Two of the alleged Zizians also died violently in these incidents.

References

"Center for Applied Rationality". Guidestar.
Salamon, Anna. (December 3, 2016). "CFAR's new focus, and AI Safety".
Segran, Elizabeth. (October 21, 2014). "Inside the Rationality Movement That Has Silicon Valley Buzzing With Positive Thinking". Mansueto Ventures, LLC.
Dvorsky, George. (February 11, 2012). "Why you're probably not as rational as you think you are — and what you can do about it".
Kahn, Jennifer. (January 14, 2016). "The Happiness Code". The New York Times Magazine.
Matsakis, Louise. (May 17, 2016). "The 'Rationality' Workshop That Teaches People to Think More Like Computers". Vice.
Chen, Angela. (January 1, 2014). "More Rational Resolutions". Nerve Magazine.
Schubert, Stefan. (2014). "The Center for Applied Rationality: practical techniques for overcoming biases". The Reasoner.
(January 14, 2014). "Skype founder donates 54,000 euros to Tartu University". The Baltic Times.
Gafni, Mattias. (November 18, 2019). "Mystery in Sonoma County after arrests of protesters in Guy Fawkes masks and robes". [[San Francisco Chronicle]].
(21 February 2025). "The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians".
Mandoli, Ava. (January 31, 2025). "Maps and timeline clarify confusing 'Ziz' case linked to death of Bay Area landlord, five others". San Francisco Chronicle.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

charities-based-in-california existential-risk-organizations organizations-established-in-2012 existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence 2012-establishments-in-california rationalism artificial-intelligence-industry-in-the-united-states

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Center for Applied Rationality — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report